


swan song

by brophigenia



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Once Upon a Time Fusion, Alternate Universe - Swan Princess (1994) Fusion, Alternate Universe - The Six Swans Fusion, Amputation, Amputee Caroline Forbes, Animal Transformations, Ballet, Body Horror, F/M, Fairytale Fusion, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, hopefully this makes sense??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a world populated by all the fairytales you know (or think you know)...[The town of Storybrooke, Maine is a picturesque place full of incredibly unhappy people. Time has stood still for twenty eight years, but that all changes when Katherine Pierce, formerly a bail bondsperson out of Boston, comes to town.]





	1. Prologue I: The Six Swans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dani_grl82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dani_grl82/gifts).



> Hey hey my giftee! I hope you love this fic! I had such a hard time deciding what to write for you, so I ended up using this for my fill! I'm also working on a Klaroline Avengers AU, so look out for that!

_ Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a world populated by all the fairytales you know (or think you know) there was a handsome prince who had seven younger sisters, each a princess in her own right, each lovelier than the last. They each had the same father, the handsome but absent king of the beautiful land of Mysteria, but different mothers, for the king was fickle and took a new bride each year, dissatisfied with them all.  _

_ The youngest princess was golden of hair and fair of face, with eyes the color of bluebells and a smile that could light even the dimmest ballroom. Her name was Caroline.  _

_ One day as Caroline picked flowers in the royal gardens with her sisters and brother, she was approached by a cloaked woman.  _

_ The woman was  _ beautiful,  _ with eyes like fawnskin and hair the color of molasses. She was also very sad, and because sweet princess Caroline hated to see anyone in pain, she brought the woman to her father, the King, sure that he could make the woman smile.  _

_ The King took one look at her and fell instantly in love.  _ I must marry you,  _ he told her. The woman wept even more, and the King began to beg for her to accept his suit. He bargained and offered priceless jewels, but still she would not agree.  _ How can I marry you, my King,  _ the woman wept,  _ when the evidence of your past loves hang about like monuments to my foolishness? 

_ She meant, of course, the presence of the King’s eight children.  _

_ So maddened with love was the King that he agreed to send his beloved children away, that his new bride would not have to look upon their faces and see the women who came before. The prince and seven princesses were rounded up and sent away to a large castle in the woods, where they would not burden their new stepmother.  _

_ The children missed their father desperately, but understood that he was their King and they had to follow his orders.  _

_ Not a year passed before the news came to them that the new Queen had born a child, a handsome boy-prince, and that the King had fallen ill and died the same night.  _

_ The children were terribly grieved, but the worst news was yet to come— the Queen had declared her own son to be the rightful heir to the kingdom, and herself regent until the boy turned eighteen.  _

_ The prince and his sisters would not stand for such, and of course hied themselves quickly on horseback to the Queen’s castle to confront their wicked stepmother.  _

I did not send for you,  _ the Queen-Regent said in greeting to her late husband’s children. They explained that they would not allow her to carry on as regent— that the eldest among them, their Prince, would be King. They would take care of her and their newest brother, they promised, but they could not allow her to flaunt their laws thus.  _

You do not  _ allow  _ me to do anything,  _ the Queen-Regent said,  _ for I am not all that I appear.  _ Throwing off her lovely cape of mink, the Queen-Regent revealed herself to be not a lovely woman but a hideous crone— a sorceress.  _

For your impudence, for your daring, I will place a dark curse upon you,  _ the Sorceress said.  _ You, prince, will not speak to a single soul for the next seven years as you waste your time toiling to save your beloved sisters, who will be turned into swans.  _ As she spoke it, it was so; the beautiful princesses exclaimed in horror as their skin sprouted feathers and their arms became wings. Seven swans they became, tangled in their fine silk gowns on the flagstones before their horrified brother.  _

If you wish to save your sisters, fair prince,  _ the Sorceress went on with great relish as the boy freed his swan sisters from their silken bonds,  _ you will speak not to a single soul and you will weave seven shirts of thorns and brambles, one shirt for each princess. You must place the shirts on the swan-girls before these seven years have passed, or you will find that your sisters will remain in their feathered forms forever. 

_ The prince, though horribly distraught, knew that he must make those shirts at any cost to save his sisters, and so he fled back to the forest, to the castle where they had been happy together. His swan sisters took to the skies, and slowly they forgot that they had ever had another form. They knew only the flight patterns and the skies and the freedom of air between their feathers, all while their brother toiled alone, cutting his hands on the thorns and brambles and weeping silently in fear and anguish, for it seemed he no sooner completed a shirt than it crumbled and broke apart.  _

_ And so years passed in this manner, until one day the prince, who had grown into a handsome man, was walking in the forest to collect more brambles and thorns when he crossed paths with a beautiful princess from a neighboring land.  _

_ The princess did not know he was a prince, nor indeed that he had been enchanted. She did not care who he was, really— one look into his eyes, soulful and pained and lovely, told her all she needed to know.  _ I have found the man I will marry,  _ she announced to her parents when she arrived back at her castle that evening,  _ I will have no other.  _ The King and Queen loved the girl, and promised to give her what she wanted.  _

_ The prince became her husband, and though he could not speak to her and spent nearly all of his time weaving the thorn and bramble shirts for his dear sisters, the prince found himself falling in love with his wife, who was flighty and easy to laugh. She was lovely, as all princesses are, and easy to love.  _

_ Finally it came the last day of the seven years; the prince had completed all but one shirt, and he worked frantically upon it even as he ran to the Sorceress’ castle, where he knew that somehow his swan sisters would be. His wife followed him, along with all of her soldiers, for they had never seen the somber man in such a froth.  _

_ The evil Sorceress waited with her young son, who knew nothing of his siblings’ plight and knew only great loneliness, for her eldest stepchild to arrive.  _

_ Finally he did arrive, and the prince brandished his seven shirts at the Sorceress, who screamed in fury to see the impossible task completed.  _ I will kill you, as I killed your foolish father!  _ she bellowed,  _ no one will take this crown from me! 

_ All at once she drew a throwing dagger, and began to take aim for the prince’s heart. The sun was setting on the last day of the seven years, and the prince knew no fear for himself. Instead, he threw each shirt into the air, over the heads of each of his swan sisters. As the prickly shirts fell over their snow-white heads and settled around their elongated necks, they became fine silk— and the swans became girls again, princesses each more lovely than the last.  _

_ The prince’s devoted wife saw the Sorceress about to throw the dagger, and instead she drew her bow and arrow and fired a killing blow straight into the woman’s black heart.  _

_ Finally, as the sun was just about to set, the prince threw the final shirt over the final sister, his youngest— Caroline.  _

_ Caroline’s shirt became gold silk and her feathers became skin as fine as silk— all but the skin upon her left arm, which did not transform back. The smallest shirt had gone unfinished, and the youngest princess’ left arm remained a swan’s wing, wild and white-feathered.  _

I am free of my curse,  _ the prince proclaimed,  _ as are my sisters. I am the rightful king of this land.  _ He turned to his wife, and kissed her, speaking to her alone for the first time.  _ I love you wife,  _ he told her, and his sisters laughed and cheered, no longer wild beasts of the sky, transformed back into princesses.  _

_ All except for Princess Caroline, of course.  _


	2. Prologue II: The Swan Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't even resist the Keelin/Freya lmao.

_ Once upon a time, in a far away land populated by magical creatures, daring heroes, and dazzling villains, there was a lovely young princess called Keelin who had just reached her majority. Her parents, the king and queen, told her that they would throw a grand ball and invite all the most eligible princes and princesses in the neighboring lands in order to find her a spouse worthy of ruling alongside of her.  _

_ The princess was unhappy about her parents’ proclamation, but was cheered by her friend, who insisted they would go hunting before the ball to lighten their spirits. And so off they went, as they had done so often before, down to the forests that surrounded the castle.  _

_ They hunted and joked and laughed for several hours, until night fell and they came upon a lake laden with swans. The princess, enjoying the taste of swan, drew her bow and notched an arrow, intending to shoot the largest of the swans.  _

_ Just as she was about to fire, the swan turned into a beautiful maiden with hair flaxen, the color of gold. Indeed, all of the swans became humans— five handsome young men and another lovely golden-haired maiden, though none so comely as the first, at least in the eyes of the princess.  _

Hark!  _ the princess called out.  _ What is your name, swan girl? 

My name is Freya Mikaelson,  _ the swan girl replied,  _ and these are my brothers and sister. 

_ The princess, daring in her sudden fit of love, stride forth and fell to one knee, overcome by certainty that this was the maiden she wished to spend her life beside.  _

I am Princess Keelin, daughter of the queen and king,  _ the princess declared,  _ and I know not your lineage nor your dowry, yet I know that we were destined to meet today, and indeed that I wish never to be parted from you from this day forth. 

_ The beautiful Freya smiled sadly at the princess, and bowed her head.  _ I too am a princess,  _ she confessed,  _ though my mother was a witch. My father was the great warlord Mikael, a King wrought from battle and not from blood. My mother’s sister was also a witch, and she grew jealous of my mother’s life, her prosperity. She cursed my siblings and I to be swans by day and humans by moonlight, and only a vow made in true love can cure us. 

_ The princess smiled in triumph, and reached forth to take Freya’s hands in her own.  _ This is no great trial, my love!  _ She exclaimed.  _ For I do love you, and I will make to you any vow that you wish! 

_ As she spoke, the mists around the lake began to rise, and out of the mists came a high laughing sound. The witch-aunt had appeared, drawn by the very rays of hope that her nieces and nephews had begun to exude. _

You shall not make any vows, princessling,  _ the witch-aunt cackled, terribly beautiful and wreathed with boughs of poisonous flowers.  _

You cannot stop me, witch!  _ The princess snarled, and a great battle was fought. _

_ A great battle whose particulars were unimportant, for this story ended happily, with the princes and princesses returned to their rightful state and the witch-aunt dead. The story of Freya Mikaelson was like many others; love at first sight, the death of a great evil, and eventual marital bliss.  _

_ The story of  _ Klaus  _ Mikaelson, however, would be a bit more… interesting. _


	3. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably shit, but y'know. I hope you like it! Pen is the term for a female swan, and cob is a male one.

“We could get away in time.” Klaus murmured from his perch a few feet to her right. They were wrapped in oilskin cloaks, crouched atop the battlements on watch duty. Elena would never ask them to do it, but Caroline and Klaus both found that they felt more at ease when they were the ones with their eyes on the horizon, as close to being in the air as was possible when you had no wings. 

(Or, in Caroline’s case, just  _ one  _ wing.)

“I know.” Caroline replied, not looking at him, because she did. She knew they could run, could take their horses and make it out of the Dark Curse’s range. They could go to any of her siblings. They could go to any of his. 

They wouldn’t, though. He knew that as well as she did. They would stay. They would stay by Elena and Stefan’s sides, and they would not waver. There was no worse sin in life than to be unfaithful. They would not leave. 

“I love you, my pen.” He murmured, in the language of birds. 

“And I love you, my cob.” She whispered back, throat achy with everything else there was to say that there would be no time for. 

Klaus reached out and tucked his fingers beneath her cloak, running their tips over her feathers. The light touch had her shivering, dark-eyed, and he watched the motion with a feral sort of look, his mouth full and slick-looking even in the torchlight. 

“Later,” she said, and meant  _ we can’t.  _ He nodded sharply, once, in response, and they went back to keeping their weathered eyes on the horizon, waiting. 

The Dark Curse, when it came, was unmistakable. Purple fog that rolled in, unnaturally thick, covering everything it touched. Klaus rang the warning bell and Caroline bellowed for someone to go tell the king and queen. 

She turned to him once the words had left her mouth; her duty was fulfilled. There was nothing left but  _ this,  _ with the Curse close enough to  _ taste  _ and twenty eight  _ years  _ of imprisonment chasing close behind. 

He stepped forward until there was no space between their bodies, until he could curl one hand in her hair and run the other down her wing, their lips meeting in a kiss too fierce for a goodbye. 

“Caroline,” he said, furious and low.  _ “Caroline.”  _

“Klaus,” she responded, just as urgent, just as full of abject terror. 

And then the Curse was upon them.


	4. Year Twenty Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta set that scene, if you know what I mean. ;)

Caroline woke up before her alarm, groaning. She wanted to go back to sleep. She’d had the dream again, the one that she’d had for as long as she could remember, every single night. She could never remember any of it, but she knew somehow it was always the same dream. The same dream and the same feeling of forgetfulness, like she had lost something and didn’t know it. 

It was going to rain; Caroline knew this for many reasons, the least of which that she lived in Storybrooke, Maine, where rain was a daily occurrence and the temperature never seemed to rise above sixty, and only that high in the peak of summer. She also knew this because the pain in her left shoulder was a hollowed-out ache, and the phantom pains were worse than usual, feeling like her entire left arm had been clenched up tight for months. This was impossible, of course, because Caroline’s left arm was nonexistent. Gone. Poof. Sliced and diced and incinerated, and now she had her bulky prosthetic to strap on every morning like clockwork so she could live some semblance of a normal life. 

The prosthetic made her shoulder ache even more, and the straps chafed her already raw skin,  _ and and and.  _ It had her in a bad mood before she’d even pulled on her sweater and jeans, and not even a muffin baked by Jackson down at Jo’s Diner made her feel less aggravated. 

Halfway to the studio, her umbrella turned inside out, a few of the spokes cracking under the sudden force. A car sped past and sprayed her head to toe with slightly-grody street water. She realized there was a hole in the toe of her right rain boot. By the time she arrived, ten minutes late for class, there was probably an entire inch of water in her boot and she most closely resembled a drowned alpaca. It was not her best look. 

Only Henrik and Anya had shown up for their morning class; Davina was nowhere to be found, and Caroline huffed, wondering where the hell the girl had gotten to. She’d been gone the day before, too, missed both her own class and the kinder class she did pose modeling for. Caroline had been forced to only work with them on footwork, seeing as how she was missing a  _ pretty important _ part of her upper body. 

Henrik stumbles through his warmups, absent-minded and unlike himself. Even Anya, usually absorbed in staring at herself in the mirrors with dark-eyed intensity, notices. “God, what is  _ with  _ you?” She mumbles crossly the third time Henrik fails to land a simple jump. 

“Nothing!” Henrik all but shrieks, defensive and  _ suspicious.  _ Chirpy. Caroline narrows her eyes. It stirs up memories of another Mikaelson entirely, and her mood blackens even further at the thought of  _ him.  _

“Henrik, seriously, what is the problem?” She asks, massaging her temples. She can  _ feel  _ her hair frizzing out. She’s probably going to go gray, at the tender age of twenty nine.  _ God.  _

“Nothing!” Henrik insists, but looks shiftily towards the door like he’s  _ waiting on someone,  _ and oh,  _ seriously?  _

She’s not surprised when Klaus walks in from the rain right around the end of their session, unfairly handsome in his peacoat and sharply tailored suit. He looks  _ good.  _ Harried but terribly put-together.  _ His  _ umbrella hasn’t committed suicide in this ridiculous wind. Caroline feels every place her sweater is clinging damply to her skin, aware of how awkward her prosthetic seems in contrast to the rest of her, demonstrating a better technique for rounding a turnout in her wet jeans. She must look  _ ridiculous.  _

She wishes she didn’t care. She wishes she didn’t care a whit what stupid Klaus thought of her, but she  _ does,  _ and she probably always will, because she got stuck like  _ this  _ and Klaus got to move on, carry on. She’s the one stuck with a fake arm and no transferable skills. It’s unfair, but so are most things in this life. 

At least Klaus looks stressed out. It makes his cheeks look pinched. There are bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept in a week. 

Caroline isn’t going to say she’s  _ glad,  _ but she’s certainly not  _ unglad.  _

“Klaus!” Henrik sings, and if it weren’t impossible to be mad at this sweet summer child, Caroline would strangle him. And make him teach the kinder class.  _ And  _ make him wear a chicken suit and do a dance in front of Josh. Not that Klaus is the equivalent of Henrik’s hilariously obvious crush from the sixteen-and-up class. 

“Henke,” Klaus says warmly, despite the stress in his eyes, and ruffles his little brother’s hair, tugging him close. “Are you paying attention to Ca- Miss Forbes?” He asks seriously, and Caroline catches that little slip of the tongue even if no one else does.  _ Miss Forbes,  _ seriously?  _ God,  _ Klaus. 

“Of course!” Henrik says, puffing out his chest. “Here, I’ll show you.” He scampers to turn on the stereo system and then launches into the first part of his routine for their upcoming recital. Klaus watches with a professional eye; of course he does. He’s the only one in this damned town capable of  _ understanding  _ what goes on in this studio just as well as Caroline does. 

Damn him. He sneaks a look at her out of the corner of his eye. His mouth turns down into a frown for a second when he takes her in. Great. She loves being judged by her ex-boyfriend-partner- _ whatever.  _

“You know I don’t want you in here.” Caroline muttered to him, going to cross her arms and then  _ remembering.  _ If possible, his expression grows even  _ more  _ pained at the aborted gesture. If she sees anything like  _ pity  _ in his eyes, she resolves, she’s going to take off her stupid fucking prosthetic and  _ beat him to death with it.  _

“Sorry, love.” He returns, and actually sounds  _ genuine.  _ She hates it. Hates that he doesn’t tease her anymore. Like she’s something fragile.  _ God.  _ “Bekah got a little…” He trails off, trying to think of something to say that isn’t completely disparaging in front of his little brother.  _ “Busy.”  _

Caroline snorts, despite herself. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” She asks, too snippy for her own comfort, almost  _ conspiratorial,  _ and her cheeks flush traitorously when Klaus laughs. She wishes the sound had soured in the intervening years. 

It hasn’t. His laugh still sounds like a cross between hot honey and an angel’s choir. It’s possibly the most unfair thing about all of this, including the horrific car accident and loss of her promising career as a principal dancer for the NYCB. 

She turns sharply away and heads over to the desk, checking the time. “See you tomorrow, Henrik.” She says, dismissing him and his older brother coolly. “Anya, can you fill in for Davina with the kinder class?” 

She misses the flash of hurt on Klaus’ face, misses how it turns into a resigned self-loathing. 

She misses all of it. 

Outside, the clocktower, which had stood still for as long as Caroline (or anyone else) could remember before suddenly beginning to work again the day before, chimes ten o’clock. 


	5. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thirty-some years ago in the Enchanted Forest...

She hadn’t liked him at first. 

That was probably the strangest part of it all. Their respective social circles had been pairing off together for  _ years,  _ first Elena and Stefan, then Bonnie and Kol, Rebekah and Marcel. Hell, even Hayley and Jackson. It was like the Northern Enchanted Forest and the Southern Enchanted Forest had made some concentrated effort to matchmake its citizens, and then there was Caroline and Klaus, and it had seemed so  _ natural  _ for them to meet. 

“They’ll have so much to talk about!” Elena had naively insisted to the others, and no one could say anything in the face of Elena’s  _ earnestness.  _ It was like a superpower. You looked at her and she was like some kind of cross between a newborn kitten and a newborn baby. Saying  _ no  _ to her was like kicking that newborn-kitten-baby in the face. Unthinkable. 

And so there had been a house party thrown at Marcel’s country estate, a hunting party to celebrate either Hayley’s victory in the Troll War or Kol’s winter wardrobe finally being completed, depending upon who you asked. 

Caroline had been among the last to arrive, harried from the road and kicking the asses of some bandits that had tried to rob a carriage she’d been passing. The woman inside had been hysterical in her profuse gratitude, and so Caroline had been presented with a ruby the size of a goose egg  _ ‘for her trouble.’  _ People in the Northern Woods were so  _ odd.  _ All of them so  _ dramatic.  _

Caroline had been among the last to arrive, and so when she’d doffed her cloak and been escorted to the parlor where all of her assembled friends and acquaintances were playing cards and laying around indolently, Klaus Mikaelson was already there. 

(Klaus, it should be noted, had  _ Known  _ right away that there would be no other woman in the world for him. He’d clapped eyes upon her and something went off in his brain, something zinged and said  _ ah yes, it’s you. _ And she had seemed like a beautiful mirage, an oasis in the desert of Marcel’s stately drawing room, golden-haired like an angel and with the brightest feathers he’d ever seen, so white as to very nearly induce snow blindness to look upon them.  _ Divinely lovely,  _ and that was even without considering the wing. The  _ wing. _ Could there ever have been a more well-suited woman for him?) 

She’d been drawn into a game of whist, and then there’d been dinner and more laying about, and she was a bit giddy from wine when she first spoke to him. 

Or, well. When  _ he  _ first spoke to  _ her.  _ He’d come up, all smarmy and too-handsome, and he’d looked at her  _ wing,  _ and she’d had  _ enough  _ of people staring at her wing, she’d had enough about a month into  _ having  _ a wing, when she was hardly twelve, and it had been years since then, so she’d only grown  _ more  _ exasperated by the  _ fascination.  _

“Do you remember flying?” He purred, and suddenly she’d been so  _ angry,  _ because  _ how dare  _ this imbecile ask her that? How  _ dare  _ he trivialize her whole life into a single fucking  _ question?  _

(and  _ yes,  _ the answer had been  _ yes,  _ her heart had ached because  _ yes  _ and she was so angry  _ yes  _ and it was so unfair  _ yes  _ why did this happen to her  _ yes) _

“Go to hell,” she’d snarled, and tossed what was left of her drink in his face before she’d stormed off. 

Klaus only stared after her, poleaxed. He’d never been rejected before. He’d never been rejected before, and certainly he’d never felt this way before, and he’d never met a single soul besides his siblings who  _ knew,  _ intimately, what it had been like, to spend his childhood as a thing with wings and to be exiled back into the realm of  _ humanity  _ without so much as an  _ option  _ to have stayed what he was. 

“Klaus, are you alright?” His brother called out, torn between vicious amusement and genuine fraternal concern. This was par for the course for Kol, of course, and Klaus only vaguely waved a hand in his direction. 

He was in love. 


	6. Unraveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummmmmmmm.

The dreams were getting worse. The dreams were getting  _ worse,  _ and everything felt  _ wrong,  _ and when had her accident even  _ been?  _ How long had she been like this, how long had it been  _ missing?  _ Everywhere she went she saw Klaus, and each time she ran into him he looked worse, like he hadn’t slept in  _ weeks,  _ and she knew she looked no better, because she would wake in the night and cry out, unable to stop herself. 

Everything felt like it was spinning out of control, and she  _ couldn’t remember.  _ Davina had asked her, pointedly,  _ when exactly  _ was  _ your accident, Miss Forbes?  _ and Caroline had went to answer her but then the date had left her mind, and she just. She  _ couldn’t remember.  _ It was the sort of thing she should remember. It was the sort of thing you didn’t just  _ forget.  _ She knew there had been media coverage of it, she knew, she could  _ remember  _ the flashbulbs and the reporters and she’d only wanted to go  _ home,  _ but she couldn’t even remember New York, either, couldn’t remember ever dancing on a stage for a huge audience, even though she and Klaus were smiling in the picture hidden in the box beneath her bed, onstage at Lincoln Center. They’d been Odette and Siegfried. She  _ knew  _ that. 

But she couldn’t  _ remember.  _

She dreamt of flying. She dreamt of flying, and of  _ falling,  _ and of terrible loneliness, and she dreamt of  _ Klaus.  _

She knew she was dreaming of him. She knew that he had something to do with this. She just didn’t know  _ what  _ she was dreaming about him, and she didn’t know  _ why  _ this was happening, and she was going out of her fucking  _ mind  _ with it. 

Katherine, their new arrival to town ( _and_ Davina’s birth mother _and_ their new Sheriff _and_ Caroline’s new roommate) seemed to feel whatever was happening, too. She paced restlessly through the night, in the upstairs room; Caroline would wake up, gasping, and hear her footsteps. They soothed her back to sleep, familiar somehow in their cadence and tread, and she’d toss and turn until morning, sweating and feeling achy all over, but especially in her stump. 

She overslept the morning of the dress rehearsal for the recital. 

She  _ overslept,  _ which she had never done,  _ ever,  _ she hardly ever even had to rely on her alarm clock, but she  _ overslept.  _ She’d stumbled around to get dressed, absent and harried and  _ exhausted,  _ still half-caught in her dreams, and so she didn’t even realize until she was already at the studio that she’d left the prosthetic behind, her left sleeve fluttering uselessly at her side. 

She was so caught up in wondering  _ how the hell  _ she’d forgotten to put it on that she didn’t even realize Klaus was there until he was standing before her, looking worse than ever. The circles beneath his eyes were as black as bruises, and his eyes themselves were bloodshot, fever-bright. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. He looked like a drowning man, and he caught hold of her wrist with such tender familiarity that she couldn’t bring herself to shake him off. His hand was so  _ warm.  _ His touch was so  _ gentle.  _ He’d always touched her this way, she could remember  _ that  _ just fine, he was always so  _ concerned  _ with her and making her feel safe and  _ good,  _ and she listed into his chest, closer to him than she’d been in  _ years  _ (how  _ many  _ years?) and it felt so  _ right.  _ She couldn’t find her anger, couldn’t find her blame or her resentment. 

She felt shaky and sick, like an addict desperate for a fix. Klaus was the drug. Klaus was the balm. 

Klaus was breathing harshly through his nose, searching her face frantically like he was expecting to see someone else there. 

“Caroline,” he said, voice broken open and raw. His thumb ran over the ridge of the knob of her wrist, and she knew the gesture but somehow it seemed wrong, like he was doing it to the wrong part of her. Like something was  _ missing,  _ and she didn’t know  _ what.  _ It nearly choked her, that unknowing. “Caroline,” he said again, urgent, and she tipped her face up, dazed. Wanting. 

“Klaus,” she sighed, time forgotten. Obligations unimportant. There was nothing else but this.  _ Klaus.  _ She’d been so tired for so long. She’d been alone for so long. Why had she pushed him away? 

“Do you remember flying?” He asked, low and urgent. 

It made something jar inside her chest. Something unpleasant. Her eyes opened. She felt disoriented, and angry for it. “Go to hell, Klaus!” She snapped, furious, and tore her wrist from his grip. He reached for her when she whirled away, and she felt something almost like him tugging at her sweater before there was nothing, and she slammed into the studio gasping for breath like she’d run a marathon. 

_ (Something was wrong something was wrong what had just happened what was going on what what what?)  _

Klaus stood on the sidewalk and scrubbed his right hand over his face. In his left he cupped a feather. 

It had been clinging to Caroline’s sweater, its stem tangled in the emerald green wool, so bright as to be nearly blinding, so white it seemed to be the most colorless thing in the world, more striking than snowdrifts. 

_ Do you remember flying?  _ he’d asked, and he hadn’t decided to say it but his mouth had moved and then it had been out in the air and he couldn’t take it back. 

He didn’t know why he’d said that, only that it had seemed inevitable. 

_ Do you remember flying?  _


	7. The Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummmmm, here's some sex. Emotional sex. Plot-furthering sex.

It seemed that anywhere she went, whether it be a ball or a tavern or a meeting of the realms,  _ he  _ was there. 

_ Klaus Mikaelson.  _ One of the Swan Princes. 

She’d felt like the worse kind of ass when she realized who he was,  _ why  _ he’d asked such a soul-wrenching question the first time they’d met. He’d seemed so much like the other would-be suitors, interested in her because she was  _ different,  _ like they were collectors looking for a limited edition coin for their display case. That’s what their eyes reminded her of, clinical and greedy. 

Klaus’ words had taken her aback, but his eyes hadn’t looked like that. They never did, when they ran into each other, even if his words were drawling and teasing and  _ terrible.  _ He spoke like an incorrigible flirt, purposely light, but his eyes bored into her like he  _ knew.  _ Like he  _ understood,  _ and every time she saw him her feathers wanted to ruffle. Her wing whispered its urgent pleas of  _ claim him claim him ours claim him cob cob cob ours  _ and she couldn’t get him out of her head. Even when she had no idea where he was, even when she was just lying in bed, her mind would turn to him.  _ Klaus Mikaelson,  _ with his sharp teeth and his broad shoulders and that  _ mouth,  _ like ripe strawberries. 

Caroline  _ wanted,  _ and it scared the hell out of her. 

It scared her because she didn’t know how to  _ ask,  _ and she was sure that after she’d humiliated him and rebuffed him so firmly that  _ he  _ certainly wouldn’t be asking. 

(She underestimated him; she’d learn to stop doing that, in the coming years.)

They’d fought a battle against Queen Isobel’s forces; it had been a bloody one, and Caroline’s blood was thundering in her ears. She felt like she was  _ flying,  _ and that was why she loved fighting. Nothing else in the waking world felt like this, now that she was a human again. She’d spent her childhood soaring through the air, always exhilarated in the way animals were, alive and unconcerned with anything but  _ fly fly fly eat eat eat fly fly fly,  _ unworried. There had been no pain or sorrow or fear. 

With a sword in her right hand and her chestplate on, everything was  _ strike strike strike run run run strike strike strike,  _ and there was no room for anything but reacting; if it wasn’t  _ quite  _ as good as flying, it was a good enough distraction that she could forget the way the wind felt ruffling her feathers, the full-spread of her wings and the singing in her muscles. 

(She wondered if Klaus felt the same way.)

Marcel’s squire had arranged for hot baths to be brought to everyone’s tents, back at camp; she’d stripped naked and sank in all the way over her head, savoring in the feeling of the heat seeping into her skin, her feathers, her achy muscles and split-open knuckles. She could feel the bruise rising on her cheek where she’d taken an elbow to the faceplate; even the soreness was sweet, her blood still pumping endorphins and adrenaline all through her body. 

She wasn’t really surprised to come up out of the water to find Klaus there, standing stricken in the doorway. 

It felt…  _ right.  _ It felt like she’d called him to her, like her imaginings had been caught on the wind and been carried straight to his ears, like he  _ knew.  _

And he knew. She knew he knew. 

“Do you remember flying?” She asked, repeating his question from months and months ago now, lips curving into a little smile. Mysterious, maybe; Caroline didn’t even know what she was feeling, only that it was all  _ Klaus.  _

He hummed, and sighed, and toed off his boots, never taking his eyes off of her. As he walked towards her cot he skinned off clothing, until there was nothing but his bare skin against the wool blanket her brother had woven for her, the first time she’d left home on a war campaign. He lay bare for  _ her,  _ and he was so long and broad everywhere she looked, built for battle. Built for sin. 

Built for  _ her,  _ her wing murmured, and Caroline stood up in the tub, water sluicing down her front, rivulets running over her bare skin. Her wing twitched, droplets spattering as her feathers rustled, and Klaus’ eyes caught the movement with wide eyes. 

She sank down on him like that; she sighed into his mouth and felt more complete than she had in all the years since she’d put on the thorny sweater her brother had not completed, since she’d been torn from her body and put into a new one, not what she’d remembered. 

She’d been wrong. Fighting wasn’t the closest she could come to flying in the waking world. It was  _ this,  _ Klaus beneath her groaning and touching her reverently everywhere he could reach, tracing her cheek and tangling in her soaked hair and saying  _ pen pen pen  _ in the hoarse language of swans, words she knew in her gut. She knew them. She knew  _ him.  _

There was no going back from this. 


	8. Undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the end! I hope it made sense, because honestly this has been so difficult to write! Like, I wanted to achieve the same kind of frantic disconnect in season one of OUAT, so I hope that you liked it, Little Bird! :)

The recital was cancelled in the wake of Davina’s sudden coma, and Caroline spent half the night in the hospital at her brightest student’s bedside, cradling her hand as gently as if it were an injured bird. Davina looked smaller than she ever had before, normally-rosy cheeks pale beneath all the tubes and wires and eyes ever-closed.  _ Alone,  _ and where the  _ hell  _ was Katherine? Where the  _ hell  _ was Mayor? 

Stefan appeared to relieve her around midnight, and though Caroline wanted to send him away after what had happened with Elena she couldn’t bring herself to, not with his eyes so worried and earnest when they took in Davina, larger than life and cut down so unexpectedly. 

She went home. Katherine wasn’t there. She went to sleep. 

She dreamt. 

She  _ woke,  _ and everything was on  _ fire.  _ Her whole body felt hot with it, like she had a fever of 108, like her  _ blood  _ was boiling, and something was wrong. Something was  _ wrong,  _ and she knew something had been wrong, she’d known, she’d  _ known,  _ and it  _ hurt.  _ Her arm hurt. Her  _ arm,  _ but it wasn’t  _ there  _ anymore, she’d lost it, she’d lost it and Klaus had been driving the car and they’d been arguing and then there’d been the semi and she’d woken up  _ alone  _ in the hospital and her  _ arm  _ was gone and her  _ career  _ was over and everything was  _ finished  _ except- 

Except she couldn’t  _ remember it.  _ She knew it like she’d read it in a book, like she’d heard the story a dozen times, but she couldn’t  _ remember  _ any of that, couldn’t remember ever even being in a car with Klaus, couldn’t remember the accident and couldn’t remember waking up alone, only that she  _ knew  _ she had because otherwise  _ why  _ was she so  _ angry  _ all the time,  _ angry  _ and  _ confused-  _

She was so  _ confused,  _ and her  _ arm  _ hurt, and something was  _ wrong.  _ And Caroline was  _ alone,  _ and she  _ needed Klaus.  _

She couldn’t remember, when she hung up, what she’d said to him, only that she’d called him and surely she’d asked him to come and if she had then she knew he  _ would,  _ because he was Klaus and he would always come to her, if she needed him. She  _ knew  _ that. 

(But  _ how  _ did she know?)

She had locked herself in the bathroom by the time he got there; she could hear him pounding on the front door but she couldn’t answer, couldn’t leave, couldn’t get out of the cold bathwater and let him  _ see-  _ let him  _ see- _

Something was  _ wrong,  _ and she couldn’t stop crying because it  _ hurt,  _ it burned and it hurt and something was  _ terribly wrong,  _ like,  _ Alien chest bursting  _ wrong. She could hear him shouting and finally she could hear him kicking the door in, and she couldn’t even bring herself to  _ care  _ about deposits and neighbors and propriety, because it hurt  _ so bad  _ that she could feel it in her marrow, in her teeth, everywhere. 

And something was  _ happening.  _

“Caroline!” Klaus barked, hammering at the bathroom door. She wept harder, and cupped her hand over where her stump had been, because something was  _ happening,  _ something was  _ growing,  _ and she didn’t want anyone to see but she didn’t want to be alone, either, and so she just cried, shaking and sweating and  _ scared.  _

The bathroom door was easier to kick in than the front door had been, and then Klaus was  _ there,  _ and she felt deja vu so strongly it made her nauseous, made her head spin, like her eyes wanted to force her to see something  _ almost  _ right but not quite. 

He swore and then he was in the tub with her, fully clothed, drawing her up further out of the water and checking her pupils and saying her name over and over, like he didn’t know what to do. Like he was scared, too, and her teeth chattered in her head. 

“It  _ hurts!”  _ She cried, and finally he saw. Finally he  _ understood,  _ because there was something  _ growing out of her shoulder.  _ Something long and naked and thin, jointed in more places than a human arm should be, because it  _ wasn’t.  _ It wasn’t an arm. It was. It was. 

“A wing,” Klaus mumbled, eyes wide, and Caroline shook with it, with the  _ pain  _ that came from growing an  _ entire appendage.  _ It wasn’t possible. It  _ shouldn’t have been _ possible, but if Klaus could see it too then that meant it  _ was.  _ It  _ was,  _ and she had a  _ wing,  _ and she should be more afraid, more  _ horrified,  _ but when he said it it seemed…  _ right.  _ It seemed  _ right,  _ more true than any of their history together, because Caroline could see it and she was living it and she  _ knew  _ it was true. 

“Don’t let go of me,” she begged, and Klaus didn’t, holding her close beneath the cold spray of the shower, uncaring of the water spilling out of the tub and flooding the bathroom, leaking out from beneath the door, more water than the drains could deal with. 

By morning the wing had  _ feathers,  _ and Caroline lay still in Klaus’ arms, breathing wetly into his throat, his hands stroking through her hair and wrapped around her back, keeping her anchored. Keeping her  _ sane,  _ after a night of  _ this.  _

“Do you remember flying?” Klaus whispered, and the air seemed to expand, everything tilting on its axis for a moment before it turned a somersault and  _ finally,  _ finally she felt like she could  _ breathe,  _ like she could-

“Klaus,” she said, gasping, scrambling up so she could look him in the face. He looked-

He looked  _ poleaxed,  _ like he had the first time she’d seen him, like he was seeing her for the first time, and  _ oh God, Klaus,  _ and she was weeping again but not for pain, and he was, too, because: 

“Cob,” she said, stroking her fingers over his mouth and her primaries over his cheek, leaning their foreheads together while he tried to pull himself together, breathing harshly through his nose. 

“ _ Pen,”  _ he murmured fiercely, and then, “I’ll  _ kill  _ that witch.” She sniffled and laughed, knocking their noses together. 

“Not if I get there first,” she retorted, and then kissed him for the first time in twenty eight years. 

There would be time for all of that later. They had all the time in the world, now.


End file.
